Philadelphia Folklore Project NON-PROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE 735 S. 50th Street PAID Philadelphia, PA 19143 PHILADELPHIA, PA [ 1987 - 2007 ] PERMIT NO. 1449

magazine of the

Address service requested

magazine of the philadelphia folklore project

Volume 19:3 winter 2006-2007 ISSN 1075-0029

G Tibetan mandalas

G Hmong culture

G Anti-racist zone

G Wobbly songlore

G Ukrainian weaving Works in progress is the magazine of the Philadelphia Folklore Project, a 20-year-old public interest folklife agency. We work with people and communities in the Philadelphia inside area to build critical folk cultural knowledge, sustain the complex folk and traditional arts of our region, and challenge practices that diminish these local grassroots arts and humanities. To learn more, please visit us: www.folkloreproject.org or call 215.726.1106. 3 From the editor philadelphia folklore project staff 4 We try to be strong: Pang Xiong Editor/PFP Director: Debora Kodish Sirirathasuk Sikoun Associate Director: Toni Shapiro-Phim By Sally Peterson Members’ Services Coordinator: Roko Kawai Designer: IFE designs + Associates The witnessing of patience: Printing: Garrison Printers 8 [ Printed on recycled paper] Losang Samten By Toni Shapiro-Phim philadelphia folklore project board 10 The Big Red Songbook: 100 Years of Wobbly Songlore Linda Goss Germaine Ingram Ife Nii-Owoo Yvette Smalls By Archie Green Ellen Somekawa Dorothy Wilkie Mary Yee Juan Xu 1 2 My art is my passion By Vera Nakonechny we gratefully acknowledge support from: 1 4 What you got to say? Eric G The National Endowment for the Arts, Joselyn’s art which believes that a great nation deserves great arts By Debora Kodish G The William Penn Foundation G Pennsylvania Council on the Arts G Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission G The Humanities-in-the Arts Initiative, administered by The Pennsylvania Humanities Council, and funded principally by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts G The Philadelphia Cultural Fund G Philadelphia Music Project, a grant program funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by the University of the Arts G The Pew Charitable Trusts G The Malka and Jacob Goldfarb Foundation G The Samuel Fels Fund G Independence Foundation G The Philadelphia Foundation G Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation G Philadelphia Cultural Management Initiative, a grant program funded by The Pew Front cover: Charitable Trusts and administered Paj ntaub of the by the Drexel University Arts About the extra cover… journey of the Administration Program The Anti-Racist Zone sign Hmong people G and wonderful individual Philadelphia included here was originally from Laos to Folklore Project members produced by Eric Joselyn as Thailand, during G We invite your support: part of a series, created for thank you to all the War. From use by activists convening in the collection of Philadelphia in response to a Pang Xiong tide of Anti-Asian violence Sirirathasuk and immediately put to use Sikoun. Photo: in the streets. 1992 Will Brown from the editor Knowing our place / going on 20 Philadelphia docks were unusual of place with him— by turning in being racially integrated. In his any space at all, wherever The Folklore Project turns 20 this essay on Wobbly songlore in this he finds himself, into a sacred year. One thing we know for sure issue, eminent folklorist Archie space through his art, bringing is that we are just beginners in Green shows what might be us with him. Shaping mandalas, this work. This issue of Works in known of such radical working Losang teaches patience, Progress features writing by and people as Fletcher through the perseverance and a sense of the about people who have been record of the songs they may interconnectedness of all things. engaged for much longer than have sung. What did workers (He will be in residence at the two decades in the cultivation of have to say in these songs? Why Folk Arts Cultural Treasures folklore and local knowledge. did they sing? In what languages? Charter School this winter— These are people devoted to For what causes? Archie’s writing, the school that PFP founded with community, deeply responsible to to be published as the preface to Asian Americans United.) Vera the times and places where they the forthcoming Big Red find themselves. These are Nakonechny’s commitment to Songbook roots PFP in time and reconstructing specific ethnic people who know particulars— place as well, for his lifelong work details of ordinary experience Ukrainian weaving traditions— has paved the way for a public beginning with the traditions and exacting craft— that escape interest folklore agency like ours. the notice of many. Another thing of the Hutsul region where her Artist Eric Joselyn’s handy that we know: this matters a lot. mother was born— has carried reworking of a common street her across three continents, and In one of my favorite books, sign (What rules do we really Wisdom Sits in Places, distinguishes her activities here want to require? What priorities in Philadelphia. She is literally ethnographer Keith Basso writes should the state really follow?) of riding the Arizona landscape helping people re-knit their and his clip-and-use fortune-teller connections to home places with with Apache friends who instruct are 20th anniversary gifts to him about local place-names. her needlework. The ethnic and readers: examples of the kind of tribal patterns were forbidden, Handed-down and “handsomely- playful seriousness with which and dangerous to make, under crafted,” these names (rarely this artist engages the world. A Soviet rule, and much has been found on maps) are fine story retrospective exhibition of Eric’s forgotten. Her work counters prompts. Telling what happened work, “What you got to say?” is this loss. here, making claims and in PFP’s gallery through February. judgments about the history of Adapting folk traditions and These artists remind us: there a place, stories do a great deal popular culture, Eric has found is no lack of important work to of useful work. Some stories tell his place supporting local be done. We register in these about people’s experience, about struggles, and the show is a pages concerns with diminishing foolishness and wisdom. Others sampling of what a range of freedom of expression, literacies, provide guidelines for how to people have had to say, often at patience, local knowledge: all behave, for how to live a good some risk, over the past 25 years core folklore issues here and life. And taken together, these here. In March we will open a now, requiring attention. stories give people intimate second retrospective exhibition. Every day in Philadelphia, folk connections to the places where This one documents a different arts — mandalas, paj ntaub, they dwell. slice of more than 28 years of songs, weavings, slogans, Place-names (and stories about cultural work here, featuring paj demonstrations and more— are them) are disarmingly simple ntaub textiles from the workshop among the resources people use forms of folklore that do powerful of Upper Darby artist Pang Xiong to enact responsibility to one work. They keep us responsible Sirirathasuk Sikoun, who has another and to this place, now to other people and other times. over the decades organized home. Intensely local knowledge, dozens of other Hmong women No less than Apache ranching folklore anchors us to community and kin in stitching versions of families long in a single place, and reminds us what is at stake. Hmong peoples’ experiences. all of these people are experts in These pages share examples of Their changing needleworks tell a kind of local knowledge: they people using folklore to name stories of a remembered know where they stand, and in where they stand, to pay homeland, war and loss, and revealing the details and attention, to work for balance, resettlement. Just as important: complexity of this knowledge, beauty, equity and justice. the needlework has served as an they help us to know where we, In the 1910s and 1920s, under ongoing and reliable resource for too, need to stand. the leadership of Ben Fletcher, negotiating these challenges. — Debora Kodish an African American dockworker One of three immigrant artists and a union organizer for the featured in this issue, exiled International Workers of the Tibetan sand mandala-maker World (Wobblies), the Losang Samten carries his sense

2006-2007 Winter WIP 3 >artist*profile< We to try be strong: Paj ntaub (story cloth) from Pang Xiong Sirirathasuk Sikoun. Photo by Will Brown. Inserts, top to bottom: Pang Xiong and her by Sally Peterson family in Laos, c. 1959. Pang playing a jaw’s harp, with T-Bee Lo. Photo: Jane Levine, 1993. Pang and other Hmong women in the early years of producing paj ntaub for sale here in Philadelphia. Photo: Tom Morton, c. 1990 Pang Xiong Sirirathasuk Sikoun highlands of Laos. Though wearing toddler clothing, so ang Xiong without a written language she must have been about Sirirathasuk Sikoun until the 1950s and the two years old. “I loved my says that she would arrival of Christian spoon, I had my own spoon. like to make a movie missionaries, the Hmong And my little basket for of her life in four retained a highly the back.” parts. Pang Xiong sophisticated oral literature Pang Xiong’s safe, has lived in Philadelphia, and history, and the women insulated Hmong world and devoted herself to excelled in minute and changes in part 2 of her psustaining Hmong culture, delicate forms of embroidery movie with the death of her for more than 28 years now. and appliqué that mother and the constant She and I worked together embellished their clothing. threat of war. Life is on several projects in the In Pang’s movie, the dangerous and difficult. 1980s. My visit now, after a picturesque scenery of the Though only seven, she is long absence, comes when Laotian highlands and the the older sister. Her mother Pang is preparing a stability and familiarity of retrospective exhibition of was her father’s third wife. home, family, and tradition There are 14 children to care her needlework, and in form the backdrop to the particular the paj ntaub for. She learns quickly, love story of her parents, (flower cloth) of the Hmong helped by her aunt and her people, an art that she has which ended tragically with grandmother. A stepmother developed in many ways the death of her mother joins the family with several here in Philadelphia. She when Pang was just seven of her own children. Then begins to reflect on a life years old. she too dies in childbirth. that began 63 years ago in “In the second part of my There are more children to Xieng Khouang province in movie,” she says, “the care for, and soon a new the mountains of northern communists come.” In mother and new siblings. Laos, not far from the 1945, when Pang Xiong was Describing the events that borders of Vietnam just one year old, the formed her character, Pang and China. occupying Japanese Xiong introduces themes The first part of the movie, surrendered the country to that echo throughout her explains Pang, would the French, who had ruled story: the obligation to establish the geographic and Laos since 1890. family and the value of historical setting of the Vietnamese-backed selfless generosity. Her Laotian Hmong, an ethnic nationalists struggled for father, Xia Cao Xiong, group that migrated control, and Xieng Khouang encouraged her to be strong, southward from China to the was contested territory. One to understand her place in northern highlands of of Pang’s earliest memories the extended family, and to Southeast Asia several is a hurried departure to have compassion for its hundred years ago. Self- nearby caves to escape a other members: “My father reliant and industrious, bombing attack. “Where is told me, ‘You have a dad. Hmong clans farmed the my spoon? Don’t forget my But they don’t have a dad. lands alongside their spoon!” She laughs to Your mom can help you, but mountain-top villages and remember her childish your dad is like a tree slowly expanded their anxiety in the face of such ¨ settlements throughout the danger. She knows she was [Continued on next page ]

2006-2007 Winter WIP 5 Samples of paj ntaub from Pang’s workshop by Will Brown.

standing up, and you are like a not afford to formally educate a stitch patterns. She learned to bird under the tree. They don’t girl. Xia Cao knew his daughter fold and cut the intricate have the tree. So you are happy was bright, and a good learner, designs of Hmong appliqué, already. Accept for them to call and so he encouraged her to anchoring the cut fabric to the me their dad. Sometimes they become a student of Hmong backing cloth with tiny "mos get more than you. But don’t culture itself: to learn to cook, to mos" stitches, intrigued by the be jealous. Love is more sing the intricately rhymed kwx challenges of the unfolding important.’” txhiaj songs (used in a kind of geometry. The two-inch-squares semi-improvised verbal display she produced became borders and duel, during courtship), to for jackets, collars, aprons, and play musical instruments, to do skirts for herself, her brothers, her paj ntaub. Xia Cao shared and her sisters. If Pang Xiong’s movie has a with his daughter his own “One day I had to know how repertoire of Hmong lore, to read,” she says. She repeats, message, I think it must be teaching her things not usually in a whisper to herself, “One an inspirational one. Her inner shared with children so young day, I had to know how to or with females. A shaman who read.” She persuaded her wellspring of exuberant life diagnosed and treated spiritual brother to teach her so she and physical illnesses before his could read and answer the and dynamic creativity conversion to Christianity, Xia notes coming to her from boys. Cao was also versed in the Soon she had organized the cannot be suppressed. protocols and recitations of younger brothers and sisters marriage settlement mediators, and the household tasks well knew the legendary stories of enough that her parents Hmong history, and enjoyed allowed her to attend the night Pang Xiong always wanted to telling a good folktale. Pang classes offered by the local be either a teacher or a nurse— Xiong quickly excelled as a kwx Christian pastor’s wife. she needed to help people, she txhiaj singer and developed her Eventually, the family would says, but she also wanted the paj ntaub skills, executing rely on her ability to learn. uniform! But her father could minute and complex cross- Isolated no more, Hmong

6 WIP Winter 2006-2007 Pang Xiong teaching children needlework. Photo: Jane Levine

villagers in 1954 Xieng Khouang Xiong recalls Hmong soldiers of home again. were at the edge of a war that the opposing Royal Lao Army In the late 1950s, Thailand and would eventually engulf them. interrupting a community-wide the United States became Ho Chi Minh’s communist forces New Year’s celebration and increasingly concerned about defeated the French at Dien Bien ordering everyone to evacuate the growing influence of Phu, not far to the east in because the Pathet Lao were Vietnam. Soon refugees fleeing expected to overrun the area the communists began very soon. Taking only what streaming into Xieng Khouang. they could carry, the village Pang Xiong’s family sold population fled. The next night, produce and farm products to Pang Xiong, her sisters-in-law, My father told me, ‘You have a dad. the new arrivals. Pang Xiong and her younger brothers crept became fluent in Lao and Thai: back to feed the animals, cook But they don’t have a dad. Your languages used for exchange food, and retrieve whatever among people from many ethnic they could from the mom can help you, but your dad is groups who spoke different abandoned farm. It was too “first” languages. An able and dangerous for men and older like a tree standing up, and you are effective communicator, she was boys to go; the Pathet Lao like a bird under the tree. They quick to read nuances of were detaining those of character and motivation. She military service age. Pang’s don’t have the tree.’ understood the persuasive little group had almost finished power of language and behavior, its tasks when an enemy patrol and she used it wisely. One interrupted them. Pang Xiong terrifying night, her emerging nerved herself to respond gaily Vietnamese-backed nationalists abilities were put to the test. to the suspicious questions: pursuing a socialist agenda in In the late 1950s, the Pathet “No, no, we didn’t run away. We Laos, supported by both the Lao communists, backed by are just farmers. No, no, we Soviet Union and the People’s North Vietnam, began an don’t know any soldiers.” The Republic of China. Prohibited by offensive to occupy more commander believed her and let territory in Northern Laos. Pang them go, but she never saw her [Continued on p. 21 ¨]

2006-2007 Winter WIP 7 8 W I P

2006-2007 Winter >artist*profile< creating a creating courtesy of courtesy Losang Samten mandala. the artist. the Photos sand by Toni Shapiro-Phim losangthe witnessing samten of patience:

mandala (literal- of Philadelphia for the past 18 where it becomes, again, one ly, “circle”) is years, Losang made his first with the environment. an intricate dia- sand mandala in the U.S. in Losang is particularly gram of the uni- 1988 after the Dalai Lama, intrigued by the design known Averse or cosmos in sacred Tibetan Buddhism’s highest- as “The Wheel of Life,” which terms. Ancient Buddhist and ranking spiritual authority, he has recreated many times Hindu temples built as man- invited him to work on a piece over the years. “I have seen dalas still dot South and at the American Museum of the power of this mandala to Southeast Asia. In Buddhist Natural History in New York. introduce ways for people to Tibet, further north, mandalas Whether the site is a museum, start asking questions about have been painted on walls or a Buddhist temple, a library, where the suffering of our or a school, artists of sand scrolls since around the 12th world comes from and our mandalas both share their century. Tibetan mandalas can individual and community understanding of the cosmos also be made out of colored troubles as well,” he says. and create a temporary sacred sand. Each of the numerous “When they start to ask these space through their “paint- Tibetan mandala designs has questions, and to see the ings.” Artists may work on roots of suffering, they can act its own complex iconography a single intricate design for in ways that will change and its own purpose—to heal, weeks, painstakingly layering things for the better. The to represent and teach com- grains of colored sand. Yet, in impact is on the individual, as passion, to explore the roots keeping with the Buddhist well as the community.” of suffering, and so on. principle of impermanence, Losang Samten has been ultimately the picture is wiped The Wheel of Life mandala, painting mandalas with sand away, the sand ceremoniously as Losang explains, focuses for more than three decades. poured into a lake or river or on the cycle of birth, death, Born in Tibet, and a resident some other body of water, and rebirth. “There are four [Continued on p. 26 ¨] 2006-2007 Winter WIP 9 The Big Red

of view Songbook: * 100 Years of Wobbly point > Songlore

ew workers’ associa- relegated expressive material individuals did not constitute a tions in the United to an auxiliary role. In short, formal (or even an ad hoc) edi- States exist long bedrock economic struggle torial committee. We undertook enough to celebrate took priority over secondary to research and write the vari- F their centennials. Trade artistic forms. ous portions of the new edition, unions, fraternal organizations, Songs, stories, sayings, skits forthcoming from the Charles H. and neighborhood alliances all and related ephemera comment- Kerr Publishing Company. It is fall victim to shifts in ideological ed upon class conflict, but did my task, here, to present an or physical environments. not rise to the level of direct overview of IWW songlore. Before a labor union reaches its action in mine, mill, forest or Even before the IWW’s formal hundredth year, it is likely to factory. Whether rebel viewed chartering a hundred years ago, have merged with parallel or work through Darwinian or farsighted industrial unionists subordinate groups. Thus, mem- Marxian eyes, each job site spoke in many tongues reflect- bers face their anniversaries determined the contour of life ing different nativities and with diverse feelings: do we itself. A song, however catego- philosophies. Accepting the honor old age alone; is it only rized, might ease a worker’s responsibility of building a then- survival that matters; or, alter- pain, help in getting through the new workers’ movement, labor- nately, do we elevate a particu- day, or, even beyond individual union loyalists, anarcho-syndi- lar symbolic emblem or special needs, assist in transforming calists, and socialists framed formulation to represent society. their messages in a rainbow of out identity? As 2005 approached, in recog- voices. Similarly, hard-rock min- From its inception in Chicago nition of the IWW’s centennial, a ers, straw cats who harvested in 1905, the Industrial Workers group of friends discussed the wheat, fruit and other crops, of the World chose as its guid- possibility of publishing The Big lintheads in textile mills, ing cause revolutionary industri- Red Songbook, a comprehen- mariners, castaways and wan- al unionism. To the extent that sive gathering of songs and derers shouted or whispered as IWW members concerned them- poems as they appeared in the their separate skills demanded. selves consciously with cultural various editions of the IWW’s Some IWW writers and ora- theory, like rival radicals, they “Little Red Songbook.” These tors both in their journalism and

10 WIP 2006-2007 Winter by Archie Green

Flyer for striking IWW members, 1920s, and Little Red Songbook. From PFP archives.

soapboxing mastered high camp. Before and during the songbook] will exalt the spirit of rhetoric; others favored vernacu- IWW’s formative years, textile Rebellion.” lar style. Readers of the IWW workers literally sang “Hard Subsequent editors in 1910-11 press and street-corner listeners Times in the Mill”; coal diggers added phrases to the booklet’s encountered language derived and hard-rock “ten-day stiffs” title such as Songs of the from Shakespeare and Shelley, shared the mournful “Only a Workers: On the Road, in the as well as the saloon and the Miner”; itinerant toilers along Jungles, and in the Shops; Songs brothel. Unlike many radicals countless miles of railroad tracks to Fan the Flames of Discontent. before and after 1905, the IWW spun out pieces such as “Big No one knows who first tagged accepted strange accents, surreal Rock Candy Mountain”— in this gathering the “Little Red deliveries, zany humor, and pun- straight or bawdy form, compen- Songbook.” It proved to be the gent cartoons as proper in the satory vehicles for rootlessness. IWW’s most popular publication; organization’s discourse. Of the many musical idioms it caught on beyond the Union’s IWW words declaimed or sung available to IWW members, one ranks. in poem and song functioned form dominated: the polemical. The nickname “Wobbly” began similarly to those in writing. With the appearance of IWW circulating in 1913-1914; it has Industrial-union pioneers did not newspapers (Industrial Worker, been joined at the hip to the create a rich body of songlore Spokane; Solidarity, Cleveland), organization’s songbooks. In con- either by calculated design or by readers submitted new tests usu- tinuous print from 1909 to the divine inspiration. Rather, ally set to then-popular vaude- present, these booklets have founders came to Chicago well ville tunes or gospel-hymn stan- gone through 37 editions. acquainted with plural musical dards. Editors varied in their (Bibliographers still puzzle over genres: classical radical fare (e.g. reception to minstrel contribu- the exact number of printings items in Socialist Songs with tions; they printed some items in and the sequence of editions.) Music, issued by Charles Kerr, their journals and others on Over the years, editors have 1901); popular hits of stage and pocket-sized cards, reminiscent deleted particular items either for parlor (Stephen Foster to Irving of earlier broadsides. In 1909, the dated content, in response to Berlin); evangelical hymns Spokane IWW branch gathered (Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey); two dozen numbers, new and traditional occupational folksong old, into a red-jacketed booklet (not yet gathered in published titled Songs of the Industrial anthologies but present in Workers of the World. plural craft, regional, and ethnic In 1968, Richard Brazier remi- communities). nisced about his role on the com- In short, to understand the mittee which prepared the first IWW’s contagious musical blend, songbook. A few of his words one must hear in the mind’s ear reveal the editors’ rationale: rebel unionists who knew “…to destroy the old myths that “L’Internationale” and “La have enslaved us for so long. We Marseillaise,” as well as home- will have songs that hold up spun shanties and ballads indige- flaunted wealth and threadbare nous to ranch bunkhouse, hobo morality to scorn, songs that jungle, or mountain mining lampoon our masters…[Our [Continued on p. 27 ¨]

2006-2007 Winter WIP 11 < artist*profile > myVERA NAKONECHNY:art is my passionle alwaysI was born in Germany afterworked the in 1962 and settled in withing, and folk costume are con- war, in a displaced persons Philadelphia, I continued to cerned. She is an authority on clothcamp, to Ukrainian parents who embroider and to research the nyzynka and is the author of the had been taken from Ukraine to technique my mother had spo- book Nyzynka: The Embroidery forced labor in Germany. Later ken of. I soon found out that the of the Hutsuls. She showed me on, my parents moved to Brazil, technique was called “nyzynka” many different folk artifacts where I grew up. Since my early and it was from the Hutsul from that region—more than I childhood, I enjoyed working with region of Ukraine, in the had ever seen: leatherwork, my hands. Embroidery and art Carpathian Mountains, the beadwork, and cutwork as well crafts were mandatory subjects in region where she had grown up. as embroidery and weaving. I grade school, and I developed a I joined the Ukrainian Women’s fell in love with her mastery and real passion for embroidery. League of America, Philadelphia skill, and with the intricate pat- Seeing my interest, my mother branch, which offered a compre- terns and motifs, colors and talked to me about Ukrainian hensive course in Ukrainian styles. I wanted to learn every- embroidery patterns and different embroidery. I also found some- thing that there was to know stitches, particularly recalling a one to teach me nyzynka—Mrs. about it. I wanted to go to technique where you embroider Eudokia Sorochaniuk. Ukraine to visit the region from the reverse side of the fab- Mrs. Sorochaniuk is from the where all this folk art originated. ric. I was very intrigued and deter- Hutsul region also, and she is a In 1992, after the break-up of mined to learn this art one day. master craftsperson where the Soviet Union, when Ukraine When I came to United States Hutsul native embroidery, weav- became independent, I took my

12 WIP 2006-2007 Winter mother to visit her homeland, motifs—as those from among no one can understand how her native village, and rela- the Hutsuls, where my mother to make it. I even went to the tives, after 50 years of separa- came from. I was especially College of Textiles here in tion. During that trip I also intrigued by the “plachta” Philadelphia for help, and took the opportunity to visit from the Poltava region. The they also have no idea how the Hutsul region. It was a plachta is a two-panel skirt, this is done. Recently I was very exciting and emotional joined together with a specific told that in two remote vil- visit. In one of the villages the unification stitch. This pattern lages in the neighboring Hutsuls were having an annu- and style has not been taught Ternopil and Bukovyna al festival, and besides sam- for a long time and was regions there are some old pling the traditional foods, I almost forgotten. It was diffi- weavers who still know and had the opportunity to see cult to find someone who use the technique. My plans people wearing different knew the techniques. Through now are to go to Ukraine, to styles of embroidered pat- personal contacts, I gained take with me a small portable terns, with breath-taking color access to the Lviv Folk Art loom and the necessary combinations and composi- Academy in order to learn to threads, and then to stay in tions of old and genuine weave this skirt. those villages until I master Hutsul folk costumes. To my surprise, I found out the technique. But speaking with some of that the looms and other For the past 12 years I have the younger Hutsul women, I equipment in the Lviv been traveling to Ukraine to found out that they didn’t Museum were very old and conduct research on embroi- know how to embroider with outdated. This was in 1993, dery, weaving, and beadwork the nyzynka technique. During only two years after Ukraine in order to further my knowl- the Soviet occupation the had become independent. edge of these folk arts and to authorities would severely The budget of the old Soviet better understand my ances- punish you if you were Ukraine had intentionally tors’ rich culture. I have been embroidering or weaving tra- neglected the Museum: no amazed to see the hidden ditional ethnic or regional pat- funds had been appropriated treasures stored in the vaults terns. Their objective was to for new equipment or other of every museum I have visit- destroy any Ukrainian art and basic Museum expenses. The ed. At the same time, I have to create the so-called Soviet electricity was still rationed, been horrified to see the art for everyone instead. So so all the work in the archaic methods used in the much knowledge was lost. Academy shops had to be battle with the moths! Many That really puzzled me, and done during daylight. When I irreplaceable artifacts were upon returning to the States I was there, one day, just as we destroyed by infestations. In contacted Mrs. Sorochaniuk finished threading the loom, it my visits, I have shared what I for help. She put together a got dark—all the lights in the have learned over the years, package of embroidered sam- building were turned off. But and I have forged relation- ples of “nyzynka” patterns, we needed more time to fin- ships with others equally instruction manuals, and her ish the job. So I took a mini- committed to the preservation book and sent all this material flashlight that I carried in my of these traditions. to the local Hutsul embroidery pocketbook, and that is how My art is my passion, and I guild group back in the we finished the project! feel a strong need to learn as Ukraine, and also to teaching Now Ukraine is in the fif- much as I can about the mil- institutions in the Hutsul teenth year of independence, lennium-old folk culture of my region. Thanks to her actions, and things have improved: ancestors so I can pass it on there is now a strong rebirth Vera Nakonechny at a the equipment has been to a younger generation. I am loom. Courtesy of of nyzynka embroidery tech- replaced or updated, and the so grateful for all that I have artist. Photos of details nique among Hutsul people. museum’s electricity and gotten: the knowledge, the of her work: Will I have now made 12 trips to heating have been restored. relationships with artists. We Brown. Ukraine, and I have discov- I have continued to pursue have become one big family, ered that the embroidery pat- my studies of Ukrainian folk on two sides of the world, terns and woven components arts. For the past two years I puzzling over this art form of the traditional folk cos- have been traveling to that was supposed to be lost. tumes from other parts of Ukraine looking for someone Ukraine are just as beautiful— who knows a special woven colorful, with complicated belt technique. It seems that

2006-2007 Winter WIP 13 < pfp*exhibition >

14 WIP 2006-2007 Winter by Debora Kodish

Eric Joselyn: “What you got tosay?”

PPolitically active his whole life, Eric Joselyn is known among an extended community of activists as an invaluable resource. Rarely credited publicly, he is a prolific working artist who has been turning peoples’ demands and dreams into eye-catching (and conscience-catching) physical and visual expressions for decades. Without recognizing it, you may well have seen his work displayed street-side: at local demonstrations for immigrants’ rights, at antiwar protests, at street theater against racism. Thousands of Chinatown residents and allies fighting to stop the city from putting a stadium in Chinatown wore t-shirts Eric designed. He crafted many of the cardboard bulldozers, puppets, costumes, and signs that local people carried to City Council chambers to protest against the city’s use of eminent domain to displace poor and working families from their homes. Aiming to even the odds for social justice movements, his deceptively simple arts and crafts are good tools for popular struggles.

Eric Joselyn photo, and photos of his work, courtesy of the artist

[Continued on page 18 ¨]

2006-2007 Winter WIP 15 CLIP, FOLD & USE YOUR OWN ERIC JOSELYN FORTUNE-TELLER PAPER TOY

Part of the material culture of childhood, these folded paper toys have been used as fortune-telling devices and for other playful purposes for at least 50 years. They are widely reported, and have been described in many variations and by many names, including “for- tune-tellers,” “salt cellars,” “film star oracles,” “wiggle- waggles” and “cootie catchers.”* Contemporary artists have made use of the form; mathematicians use them to teach basic principles. Eric Joselyn made this one for a “free-trade parade” that was part of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival in September 2006. Suited “capitalists” passed out the fortune-tellers to spectators: a bit of fun to open crowds to the critique. How to make it: x Cut the folded paper off at the ------. x Fold the “Dupont” corner over to meet the “Gulf War Oil” corner, and uncrease. x Fold “Enron” corner to meet “Dupont” and uncrease. x Flip the toy over. x Fold all four corners over so that they meet in the middle. (Four full squares and eight triangles will be showing). x Turn it over. You should be looking at 16 triangles with “fortunes.” x Fold each of the corners in to the middle. You should see 8 triangles: “Dead trees,” “Toxins,” “My S.U.V.”, etc. x Crease the square in quarters, through the middle of each flap. (If you flip it over, you will see the 4 squares. ) x Back on the side with the 8 triangles, bring the outside points together in the middle. x Pull out the square flaps: “Dupont,” “Gulf War,” etc. x Place thumb and index finger in each flap to manipulate.

* For examples, see Iona and Peter Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (1959), Mary and Herbert Knapp, One Potato, Two Potato (1976), and Simon Bronner, American Children’s Folklore (1988)

16 WIP 2006-2007 Winter

eric joselyn/continued from p. 15

folk arts, lovingly made, could bring beauty into people’ lives, while also sustaining a family. He remembers her quilting, sewing and canning: many-colored jars of fruits and vegetables preserved like exotic specimens in the basement. The Minnesota State Fair, with its annual gathering of the work of peoples’ hands— prize vegetables, kids with animals they had raised— is another valued touchstone for him of how ordinary peoples’ artistic productions can be publicly celebrated and appreciated. These grassroots contexts for art-making, rather than galleries and formal institutions, were important models for him, as he tried to define his own role as an artist. It wasn’t an obvious road for You don’t usually find Eric’s work to standing with others. The someone with a clear and in a gallery. The Folklore Project’s words on signs and banners don’t developed politics. Eric’s talents exhibition this winter is a rare just come from this artist alone or and inclinations set him on an chance to see a sampling of more represent a singular vision: they artistic path, but the conventional than 25 years of his efforts all in come from groups of people role of a school-trained gallery- one place: high-spirited mobilizing together. As an artist, bound artist just didn’t feel right. handmade props for Eric is about facilitating He studied art at the University of demonstrations, stylish do-it- community expression on issues Minnesota, but resisted the push yourself banners, a forest of that matter. He says, “Putting to disconnect from the world, words on signs, and texts filled visual tools into the hands of retreat to a studio, or hone a with painful reminders of the people working to turn this personal vision and skills. He constant need to fight for justice. system over gives me a big dose says, ”That I almost The exhibition of my kind of aesthetic pleasure. need to make stuff is a catalogues time- Traditional community skills and fact. But I just couldn’t honored and newly- popular cultural traditions have spend my days in minted forms of taught me a lot about building a some one artist-one political expression— happy and democratic opposition product-one consumer banners, placards, t- to the greedy, hateful society equation. I eschewed shirts, buttons, badges, foisted upon us. I’m offering ideas the label of ‘artist.’ I puppets, and toys— for tying our art to the ceaseless was something else.” each representing drive of regular people Eric says that it took some pressing concern everywhere to build a better time to find a way “to of the last two world. I am excited by break through such a decades. The seeing the things we closed circuit.” exhibition is also a make put to righteous compelling inventory use towards a He eventually came to see of some of the righteous end.” himself as part of a long line of struggles of local cultural workers: “from naughty communities. olk arts play an important balladeers in pre-Revolutionary Eric Joselyn’s work challenges role in his politics and style. France, to woodblock cutters and common notions of art-making in Growing up in a politically jugglers spouting mass line in many ways. His work is not about Fprogressive midwestern turbulent China, to the wives who individual creativity for its own family, exposed to examples of sewed those gorgeous union local sake, or about novelty or busy people who made beautiful banners with all the gold tassels reputation. Creative, inventive, and useful things by hand. His carried before the 8-hour day was and fundamentally about what a grandmother encouraged his won.” And then there were principled individual can do, artistic inclinations, and provided broadside printers and artists, Eric has a clear commitment many examples of how everyday who turned out pointed political

18 WIP 2006-2007 Winter eric joselyn/continued from p. 16 messages on hand-printed sheets. at making a better world. In his subversive, and quite literally Like all these artists, Eric found a hands, art continues to advance community-based: his head place, shoulder to shoulder with collective efforts and alternative and hands and skills others, helping to shape and perspectives. In a saner world, in are invested in the broadcast peoples’ messages another time or place, he would capacity, and loud and clear. By now, he has have been a village potter, or struggles, of serious street credibility as a made things with cloth, he says. communities to make community-based political artist. Given these times, his approach pressing and As the exhibition makes clear, he to art-making is to use native wit, necessary changes. has contributed his artistry and a keen sense of politics, and a political savvy to countless storehouse of traditional arts and progressive efforts, creating expressions to amplify people’s “multiples” (flyers, t-shirts— work capacity to speak to one another that can be handed up or posted and to be heard. His work remains in large numbers) and “highly human-scaled, democratic, visables” (banners, puppets, and the like). He aims to change the world, to make popular movements “look better” (adding aesthetics and style), and to encourage people to have fun in the process. These values also infuse his teaching, another way that he “engages with big numbers of others.” He has now spent decades working with young people, painting walls, making prints, and teaching in public schools. (He currently is the Art Teacher at the two-year-old Folk Arts Cultural Treasures Charter School, a project of Asian Americans United and the Philadelphia Folklore Project.) As a teacher in and outside of the classroom, he democratizes art- making, making it do-able, fun, and a way for young people and activists alike to exercise power. And of course, nothing is wasted. Eric uses (and re-uses) materials at hand— cardboard, wit and will. “What you There are lessons, and politics to got to say?” everything. Exhibition of art by wenty-some years after he Eric Joselyn left Minnesota, Eric has transferred many of the At the Folklore Project Tpolitics, values, and ethics of 735 S. 50th St. eclectic folk arts to Philadelphia’s Philadelphia, PA gritty streets, and to the communities among whom he Through February 10 has made a home. He continues Open 1st Saturdays to produce arts that are (10 AM - 1 PM) and by accessible, meant to be used, appointment: 215.726.1106 grounded in freely-shared knowledge, essential to sustaining meaningful relationships, aimed

2006-2007 Winter WIP 19 pang xiong/continued from p. 7 the 1954 Geneva Convention Hmong people and their cause. Hmong had been their most from interfering with Laos Pang Xiong and Charoon met in effective enemies. Many Hmong openly, foreign governments January 1960. They were felt they had no choice but to flee. aiming to help either the Royal married in March. She was 15. Safe in Thailand but sick with Lao Army or the Pathet Lao Pang Xiong’s honeymoon in worry for her family, Pang carried out secret operations. Bangkok ends the second part Xiong could not get word of The town of Padong, on a of her movie. Part 3 opens in their fate. She listened avidly to mountaintop six miles Thailand in the mid-1960s. Pang the daily Hmong broadcast from southwest of the Plain of Jars, Xiong is living in Sukhothai with Chiang Mai, Thailand, and was became the headquarters for Charoon’s family. She has given shocked when she heard her the clandestine recruitment and birth to three sons, finished father’s voice with a message training of Hmong soldiers for sixth grade, attended Thai Girl for her. Like other stranded the Royal Lao Army under the Scout courses, and studied refugees, he had sent a tape- command of General Vang Pao. tailoring. The war has escalated recording to the radio station Organized and funded by the in Laos, and now Hmong troops from a temporary holding CIA, the Hmong were trained by are fighting battles as well as camp. Pang and Charoon American military advisors and monitoring the Ho Chi Minh traveled across Thailand to see by Thai military and special Trail, the route through eastern the family members who had police personnel. Xia Cao Laos used by the North arrived from Laos and try to Xiong’s family and Hmong from Vietnamese Army to supply its learn the fate of those who had over 70 Xieng Khouang villages mission in the South. stayed behind. The reunion in fled south to Padong. Pang Charoon was still the overcrowded, unsanitary, Xiong’s stepmother’s family headquartered in Laos, and and restrictive environment of worked a farm nearby, and once Pang Xiong joined him for the temporary refugee camp again Pang Xiong set up shop months at a time, assisting him was filled with both joy and along the roadside, joining the in the vaccination programs that uncertainty. Lao citizens many other young girls with were part of his military duties. residing in Thailand, like Pang impromptu coffee stands and They maintained homes in both Xiong, had only one month to soup pots who sold their wares countries, and Pang’s younger decide whether or not to join to residents, refugees, military brother lived with them. their families in refugee camps advisers, and Hmong trainees The war in Laos did not go to await resettlement in the quartered in the town. well for the Hmong people. United States. Pang had lived in Pictures from that time show Many, many Hmong soldiers Thailand for 15 years. She had a Pang Xiong as a pretty, petite, died, including five of Pang’s home, a farm, a successful and stylish teenager with bright brothers. The Hmong were restaurant business, and a eyes and a wide smile. “Pretty losing territory to the North tailoring job. But her family was cute,” she admits. She surely Vietnamese-backed Pathet Lao, moving far away to America; sparkled, bantering with the and the Americans were losing one brother had already gone young men who hung around the political will to continue a “to Pillapilli, something, as she deftly cooked the war with little remaining Puppiafia.” She laughs, chickens they brought to her domestic or international remembering the strangeness and wowed them with “Hmong support. Promises of an of the sound of "Philadelphia." salad,” a concoction of cayenne independent country and of What should she do? She tells peppers, scallions, cilantro, salt, continuing aid and support for me in detail, nearly 30 years and limes. Her fluency in Thai, the Hmong people evaporated. later, what happened: “I go back her wit, and her singing talents In 1973, a cease-fire was to my brother, I say, ‘We have to soon brought her to the notice proclaimed, the Americans go inside the camp. Because we of a handsome young Thai pulled out, and all Thai civilians don’t want to stay here paratrooper serving the Royal working for the government had anymore. I need my people. I Lao Army as a medic. Charoon to leave Laos. World opinion need to see my people. The Sirirathasuk worked closely with correctly predicted that the years I’ve come to Thailand, too the Hmong as a medical forces led by Hmong General long already.’ I cry, I say, ‘I need practitioner and weapons Vang Pao would not be able to to go. If you don’t want to, that’s trainer. He began to visit Pang withstand the Pathet Lao for OK. I go.’ He says, ‘Yes, I go.’” Xiong's house with her long. In 1975, Vietnam, Now the parents of six young brothers, bringing gifts and Cambodia, and Laos fell. The sons, Charoon and Pang Xiong supplies for her business. Soon, Hmong leadership was airlifted sold their property, their he asked to marry her. The out of Laos, while the crowds of livestock, and their car and match, she was told, would be Hmong following them were registered at Ban Vinai Refugee good for her, and for the Hmong turned back with gunfire. The Camp. They were quickly people, too. Charoon's service emergent government of the enlisted as staff. Charoon to the Hmong military and their Lao People's Democratic trained medical assistants in the families earned him respect, Republic instituted a policy of hospital, and Pang Xiong taught and his marriage to a Hmong repression toward the sewing and hygiene to adult woman deepened his ties to the remaining Royalists, and the women, drawing upon her paj [Continued on next page ¨]

2006-2007 Winter WIP 21 pang xiong/continued from p. 21

ntaub skills, her tailoring knowledge of Hmong culture, and other sales opportunities. experience, and her Thai Scout ability to organize But in 1980 occasional cultural training. She felt that she was in performances, and out-going arts programs and paj ntaub her element when teaching. She communicative style made her sales did not pay the rent, and was proud of the success of her an invaluable resource for Pang Xiong also pursued other students, and she insisted on ethnic arts programs, and she means to make a living. high standards. Life in the was frequently asked to perform Like hundreds of thousands of camps, though, was hard. Many for local schools and libraries. immigrants to the United States, people were still suffering, More opportunities developed Pang Xiong and her family took many had lost their families. as new relationships formed. advantage of every opportunity They didn’t know what would The instructor in her intensive to earn income. Within three happen to them. English program admired the months of their arrival in In 1979, word came. Pang’s paj ntaub needlework that Pang Philadelphia, Pang Xiong, brother Chao Xiong had Xiong embroidered during Charoon, and their two eldest arranged for them to join him in breaks. She arranged for Pang sons found employment at a Philadelphia. They packed eight Xiong to sell paj ntaub at popular restaurant, (Friday, pillows and eight blankets. Two Headhouse Square, a weekend Saturday, Sunday), where they sets of clothes for each person. crafts market in the heart of introduced touches of Hmong A box of dishes (do they have Philadelphia’s tourist district. cooking. Pang pursued her pots like these in America?). A Pang discovered you couldn’t life-long desire to be a nurse box of paj ntaub wall just pack up and leave if you and completed a nursing hangings—producing enlarged, wanted to, as vendors did in assistant program. This work, simplified adaptations of Thailand, and it took a while to however, did not bring her the traditional designs to sell to understand how to price the joy and freedom that she tourists had become a cottage pieces–—but she loved the experienced as an artist and industry in the camps. Pang also atmosphere, and the income as a vendor of traditional arts. packed her own paj ntaub—the surprised her. (She has returned Barely a year after her arrival pieces from her mother’s hand, to Headhouse Square every in the United States, Pang Xiong her auntie’s hand, her summer since 1980, and has performed and demonstrated grandmother’s hand, her own now been there longer than any paj ntaub at the 1980 hand. But there was room for other craftsperson.) Pang Xiong Smithsonian Festival of little else. They boarded the was not the only refugee American Folklife in plane for America. Hmong woman to sell paj Washington, D.C. She found the Part 4 of Pang Xiong’s life ntaub. Craft fairs, museums and experience both exciting and story finds her in Philadelphia. galleries across the nation, profitable; her displays and She was accustomed to wherever Hmong resettled after performances sent many to the succeeding through the war, displayed the flower sales tent to purchase paj ntaub. communicating, and her lack of cloth of Hmong women. The two weeks in Washington English left her feeling Resettled Hmong helped convinced Pang Xiong that frightened and frustrated. But a support relatives in refugee making, selling, and presenting chance encounter with a Thai camps by selling the paj ntaub Hmong traditional arts not only student led to an invitation to sent to them from Thailand. produced income, but furthered perform traditional Lao and They suggested adaptations understanding and appreciation Hmong dances at a Pan-Asian that would appeal to American between people. This was festival. Within three weeks of consumers, adjusting sizes, exactly what she wanted to do, her arrival in America, Pang supplementing the traditional and what she felt she did best. Xiong formed and trained a palette of bright, contrasting Since 1980, Pang Xiong dance troupe that performed at colors with pastels and earth Sirirathasuk Sikoun has Drexel University, International shades. The bulk of refugee maintained a successful House in West Philadelphia, and camp production went to business selling needlework public events sponsored by brokers in Thailand, but tens of crafted by Hmong hands, taking various church and civic thousands of pieces were sent pieces on consignment, buying organizations. to extensive networks of kin in directly from other Hmong Philadelphia was a resettlement communities in the women, or ordering specific resettlement destination for United States, bolstering the items from paj ntaub makers. thousands of refugees from stock of needlework made by She continually explores new Southeast Asia in the early resettled women. The labor- ways to present paj ntaub, 1980s. Some arts organizations, intensive story cloths, a pictorial adapting embroidered borders churches, schools, and form of embroidery that to jackets and dresses, sewing volunteer agencies turned to the narrated scenes, stories, and handbags, Christmas presentation of traditional arts— experiences of Hmong life, were ornaments, and dolls. Pang music, dance, and needlework— made almost exclusively in the Xiong has shared selling to ease the transition for refugee camps. Pang Xiong opportunities with other Hmong refugees. Pang Xiong’s often accompanied other women, although few can Hmong women to crafts fairs sustain the grueling hours, [Continued on p. 24 ¨]

22 WIP Winter 2006-2007 is proud to be a PFP member and congratulates PFP on its 20th anniversary.

Congratulations to PFP on its 20th anniversary. pang xiong/continued from p. 22

discomfort, and uncertainty that Thailand. Sukhothai enjoyed a people, Pang Xiong says: accompanies craft fair popular run in Center City, only “We came to this country very participation for very long. In to succumb to the depressed sad, and we try to win the mid-1980s Pang joined other business climate that arose in something. Hmong women contracting with the aftermath of 9/11. You cannot win the war. You vendors in Lancaster County, Simultaneously, Pang Xiong cannot win the gun. You cannot Pennsylvania, to make quilts of completed training programs in win the life. contemporary Amish and medical and legal interpretation, You say, what do I win? Mennonite design. She now serving her community by I do not win my brother’s life, instructs over a dozen women in providing informed translations he died...they killed him. They quilt-making and oversees in Hmong, Lao, Thai, and threw him in the Mekong River. production of hundreds of quilts English. He died. We do not win their a year. And still she bent her creative life, I cannot bring them back. By the late 1980s, Pang’s powers to the creation and I [can] not win my five passion for teaching and promotion of Hmong brothers’ lives. learning, not to mention her needlework and its makers. A But I win because my unerring ability to recognize and 1996 Pew Fellowship in the Arts brothers’ children are here. act upon opportunities, had enabled her to spend a year My mother, my father came made her an eloquent studying the weaving here, even though they died, spokesperson for the values and techniques of Green Hmong aesthetics of Hmong culture. women, traveling to Hmong but they win, because they Journalists, scholars, and other communities in China to learn already come here. artists still seek her opinions from masters of the art. She We win when we can get a and ask her to share her shipped a full-sized loom back house. knowledge. She has received to Philadelphia. We win, we can get a new car. national recognition and Pang Xiong retains those We win, we can get a new prestigious grants. Yet early lessons about generosity, home, we can be an American recognition, even on a national self-sacrifice, and devotion to citizen. level, rarely brings dependable the family. She remains a quick We try to be strong here. We remuneration. Pang Xiong study—swiftly grasping the try to be an example people. continued to fill gaps in the truth of a situation, swiftly We win. My name is in books, family income by picking intuiting deeper meanings. She articles, so I win that. blueberries in New Jersey, gives Thai language lessons in People know my name, cleaning churches, and other her kitchen every Saturday, and know Pang Xiong. forms of seasonal labor and feeds her students lunch. She You see, I win lots of things. domestic service. continues to both preserve and I win a lot. My children got As the years rolled by, Pang invigorate the principles of bachelor's, master's degrees. and Charoon’s sons graduated Hmong paj ntaub. Recently, she That means I win. from high school, then has been experimenting with Many people win in this college, and began to marry. combining the cotton print country the same way with me. Grandchildren were born, and fabrics used to appliqué Same way. the older generation began to Amish-style quilts with the But they don’t know the leave life. Within a few short geometrically complex designs meaning. years, Pang Xiong said final of Hmong paj ntaub. The But my meaning’s in good-byes to a brother, her flowered prints commonly used my head.” mother and father, and her to appliqué tulips and doves husband, Charoon. The last time onto a creamy muslin for the I saw Pang Xiong before this Amish tourist trade seem to A retrospective visit in 2006 was the day she deepen and swirl when overlaid exhibition buried her husband. She told with a dizzyingly complex me then, “I don’t know what to geometric Hmong reverse of paj ntaub and do. I don’t know what will appliqué layer. The resulting other needlework from happen to my life.” creations pop with an energy If Pang Xiong’s movie has a that recalls the days when the Pang Xiong message, I think it must be an intricacy and intelligence of Sirirathasuk Sikoun’s inspirational one. Her inner Hmong paj ntaub design first workshop will be on wellspring of exuberant life and burst onto the American dynamic creativity cannot be art scene. display at the suppressed. Since our last visit, Pang Xiong’s movie will never Folklore Project: Pang has made a second happy really end. Scenes of war and marriage. The whole family love, loss and renewal remain March - June 2007 joined together to open vivid for her. Evaluating her own Please call 215.726.1106 Sukhothai Restaurant, named experience, and those of her or for details after Charoon's hometown in visit our website (www.folkloreproject.org)

24 WIP 2006-2007 Winter 10% off with this AD!

yourvision+ ourcreativity=

www.ifedesigns.com GRAPHIC DESIGN/BRANDING CAMPAIGNS/WEB DESIGN

vision+creativity+service=smart design

Philadelphia | Atlanta | 215.848.7093 |1.800.931.1868 |

2006-2007 Winter WIP 25 losang samten/continued from p. 9

rings of images. The first one, in museums, galleries, and univer- disrobed against their will by the center, consists of a pig sities. He also works at schools. the aggressors. Thousands of (ignorance), rooster (greed and In all these settings, he discuss- monasteries were destroyed. attachment), and a snake es the local context with whom- When the Dalai Lama left Tibet in (anger). These negative emo- ever has invited him, aiming to 1959, tens of thousands followed, tions are considered the root of discern which mandala might including Losang’s family. suffering. Together they lead to be most appropriate for that The Dalai Lama based the a cycle of rebirth. The Wheel of place at that time. Onlookers not Tibetan government-in-exile in Life depicts this cycle through only witness the emergence of Dharamsala, India. To this day, rings representing the realms of specific designs taking shape more than 100,000 Tibetans live gods, demi-gods, human before them and learn some- in refugee settlements in India beings, animals, hungry ghosts, thing about a Tibetan Buddhist and Nepal. Many have moved and beings in hell.” worldview; their experience also on to third countries, including When Losang is working, includes being in the presence the United States. small bowls of richly colored of a remarkable depth of con- Most of the 50 or 60 Tibetans sand rest on a nearby surface. centration, focus, and patience. in the Philadelphia area have The color symbolism is com- “First and foremost,” accord- been here less than ten years. plex, but, in general, it is related ing to Losang, “these mandalas They come together for cultural to the five elements, with white are a form of communication events, often on Tibetan holi- representing water, yellow for through art. They tell stories days, and participate in cere- earth, red for fire, green for air, that have meaning for Tibetans monies and other activities with and blue for space. In order to and other Buddhists, and for the larger Tibetan community in create a detail, perhaps a cloud humanity in general. The wit- New York whenever possible. At or a particular animal, he begins nessing of patience in the cre- these gatherings, dance is a by concentrating on the overall ative process helps observers central feature. Losang, in addi- meaning of the mandala and on find patience and perseverance tion to his artistry with sand, is the specific image he is about to within themselves. They also an accomplished ritual and folk craft. Back in the 1970s, when see how each tiny piece matters dancer. As a monk, he studied Losang was studying at a in the interconnectedness of and performed sacred dances at monastery in a Tibetan exile life,” as grains of sand and indi- temples. He also mastered community in India, his teacher vidual images combine to create Tibetan folk dances and music explained that concentration, meaning. “These are important as a high school student at the along with memorization of lessons for the next generation, Tibetan Institute of Performing iconography, helps the artist whether Tibetan or not. Arts. This was the first official produce a precise expression of Whenever I dismantle a man- institution the Dalai Lama estab- the intended design. Traditionally, dala, I ask some young people lished after his arrival in sand mandalas were the focus of to help as a way of physically Dharamsala, a testament to the meditation, and precise imagery and spiritually passing on this value placed on expressive cul- is critical when a mandala is to be tradition.” ture in Tibetan life. used for such a purpose. It is still Losang’s own journey as a Losang received a Geshe important, says Losang, when practitioner of this tradition (doctoral) degree in Buddhist the mandala has an aesthetic began with an intensive three Sutra and Tantra Studies at or educational role. and a half year training program Namgyal Tantric University in After sketching the outlines at Namgyal Monastery in India Dharamasala in 1985. He has of the design in white on a dark from 1975 to 1978. This is the been a teacher of meditation base, Losang fills his chakpo same Buddhist monastery at and Spiritual Director of the (metal tool) with sand of one which he had been ordained as Tibetan Buddhist Center of color and slowly guides the flow a monk in 1969, about a decade Philadelphia since 1989, still of grains through its tiny hole after escaping the brutal reli- traveling often to conduct medi- onto the surface of what will gious repression that began tation retreats around the coun- become an extremely complex, with China's invasion of Tibet in try. In 1994 Trinity College in sometimes three-dimensional, the 1950s. Buddhism, even Hartford, Connecticut, awarded composition. In Tibet or India, though it is not monolithic in its him an Honorary Doctorate of an artist can wipe superfluous practice in Tibet, has nonethe- Divinity, and a year later the grains away with a yak-hair less been the defining essence Maine College of Art in Portland brush. Here, Losang uses a of Tibetan civilization. It is esti- gave him an Honorary specially shaped piece of wood. mated that of the half-million Doctorate of Art. Hollywood Losang has created mandalas monks and nuns in Tibet prior called in 1997: Losang served as throughout the United States to the invasion, more than half religious technical advisor and and Canada, most often at were tortured, murdered, or [Continued on next page ¨]

26 WIP 2006-2007 Winter losang samten/continued from p. 26 sand mandala supervisor for computers, he cannot communi- standing, too, and portray my Martin Scorsese’s film Kundun. cate with family members who point of view in my art.” He has been recognized with remain in their small village in a 2002 National Endowment for This last quotation is from an Tibet. He worries about them interview by the author with Losang the Arts National Heritage and about the future of Tibet Samten published in PFA, the Fellowship in honor of his and its rich culture. He attempts newsletter of the Pew Fellowships accomplishments as a sand to better the world through his in the Arts (fall/winter 2004), p. 6. mandala artist, as well as a Pew art and by leading others on Fellowship in the Arts in 2004. meditation retreats, although he Losang makes annual trips to left the monkhood in 1994. India, where he continues to Mandalas and spirituality are Losang will be learn from the Dalai Lama and inextricably intertwined. As he artist- in-residence other spiritual leaders and explains, “The Buddha himself at the artists, studies mandala imagery has been seen as a great artist, Folk Arts in caves and old temples, and as one who has reached into Cultural Treasures meditates. Because of travel deeper understandings of reali- Charter School restrictions and his relatives’ ty. I retreat and meditate to this winter. lack of access to phones and reach towards better under- wobbly songs/continued from p. 11 change by members in personal strove to nurture revolutionary pieces. As their material taste, or in reaction to external consciousness. Each piece— reached large society, Wobblies issues. At times, behind-the- whether topical, hortatory, ele- responded ambivalently— scenes debate on difficult giac, sardonic, or comic— happy that the Union had gone pieces has revealed switches in served to educate, agitate, and beyond its ranks; dismayed that position on large conceptual emancipate workers. Songs strangers might distort the matters: job action, sabotage, were intended as arrows to IWW’s inherent message. lifestyle, gender, relations with penetrate bourgeois (in Wobbly Three books in particular other left-sectarian groups. parlance, “scissorbill”) mentali- measure the spread of IWW Although the IWW discour- ty, and to anticipate a new songlore outside the organiza- aged personality cults within its social order—the common- tion’s bounds. In 1909, Paul ranks, songwriter Joe Hill wealth of toil. Brissenden, a California student achieved legendary status ini- In everyday practice as in Economics, became interest- tially among industrial unionists Wobblies sang at jungle camp- ed in labor. In 1919, the and subsequently in a larger fires, in meeting halls, and dur- Columbia University Press pub- group of CIO members, urban ing free speech rallies, much of lished his The IWW: A Study in liberals, and unaffiliated radi- their repertoire melted away. American Syndicalism which cals. Hill’s life as a Swedish Some lyrics proved too taxing included thirteen songs. In emigrant to the United States, to sing; in short, they were 1923, the University of Chicago his capacity to pen two dozen unsingable. Others had been set Press issued Nels Anderson’s new Wobbly songs within a to tunes that lost out in style The Hobo, an influential study five-year span, his trial for mur- wars. Still others became irrele- of homeless men. It held four der and death by firing squad in vant as the IWW declined. IWW songs. Salt Lake City (1915), and unre- However, a handful entered Carl Sandburg’s The solved questions of guilt or tradition—a few as folksongs, American Songbag (1927) innocence combined to elevate some as labor-union classics. appealed well beyond campus him into the workers’ pantheon. Not all IWW members have walls with three Wobbly num- The extensive literature on enjoyed sharing material across bers. Sandburg conferred folk- Joe Hill (by writers such as institutional lines, nor upon song rank for “The Preacher Ralph Chaplin, Joyce Kornbluh, hearing treasures performed by and the Slave.” Under varied Franklin Rosemont, Gibbs rivals: pragmatic craft unionists, titles (“Long Haired Preachers,” Smith, Barrie Stavis, and reformist allies, left partisans. “Pie in the Sky”) Joe Hill’s paro- Wallace Stegner) leads readers Wobblies known for militancy dy of the hymn “Sweet Bye and beyond biography to searching on the job and life-defying brav- Bye” moved out of labor’s questions on the nature of ery on the strike front were sphere to comment upon moral Wobbly lore and its “fit” as a powerless to control the trajec- values in the American polity. chip in the mosaic of labor’s tory of their songs, or to deter- Ironically, a song introduced heritage. IWW poets/composers mine life or death for given [Continued on next page ¨]

2006-2007 Winter WIP 27 wobbly songs/continued from p. 27

outside the IWW orbit yet troversial. During the 1920s and ual and social identity. memorializing Hill achieved ‘30s, IWW activists opposed My sketch above offers some more fame than most pieces in Communist Party policies. generalizations about Wobbly the Wobbly canon. “Joe Hill” However, by the 1970s, with the songs. Here, I turn to a few of opens with “I dreamed I saw passing of many old-timers, the issues faced by the informal Joe Hill last night alive as you young Wobblies were less committee of friends responsi- and me.” It has been sung by invested in maintaining section- ble for The Big Red Songbook. Joan Baez, Billy Bragg, Joe al differences. In this context, To identify myself: I have Glazer, Paul Robeson, Pete “Union Maid” became accept- worked first as a shipwright Seeger and many others. Alfred able to the IWW. and later as a teacher. Although Hayes (lyrics) and Earl Beyond the merits of enlarg- sharing many Wobbly values, I Robinson (music) offered it ini- ing a songbook with “outside” am not an IWW member. In tially in 1936 at Camp Unity material, labor partisans face a studies over the years, I have near New York City. Their gift— difficult question: pop culture’s probed for the IWW’s place in forged on a Communist Party influence on Wobbly expression creating and extending labor- Popular Front anvil— has (characterized by Franklin lore. My views reflect trade- sometimes been erroneously Rosemont in his study Joe Hill, union experience and academic attributed to Hill himself by 2003, as “revolutionary work- folklore training. commentators who allege that ing-class counterculture”). I ask: Included in The Big Red he composed it as a salute to Should Wobblies have resisted Songbook is the essay “John fellow workers and a projection Popular Front formulas and Neuhaus: Wobbly Folklorist” as of his immortality. “folksong revival” fare? What I penned it nearly half-century A few words on the trouble- are this dilemma’s implications ago. Today, it can be read as a some matter of definition may for labor unionists in their cul- memorial to a friend and fellow help new readers in their evalu- tural decisions? How do we worker. Also, it is a road marker ation of Wobbly songs. Most of navigate between contestation- on a still incomplete journey. the items gathered in The Big al and conciliatory strategies? Do we feel obligated to contin- Red Songbook are no longer Present-day IWW activists ue John’s exact path, or are we sung, but remain of interest to divide in assessing their musi- free to set off in new direc- historians, sociologists, and a cal heritage. Some assert: tions? few labor-union partisans. “Economic forces outweigh cul- John Neuhaus was passion- Although the very first booklet tural expression; we need only ate in his belief that Wobblies held a traditional parody cher- to alter conditions at the point and friends should continue to ished by itinerant workers, of production; class struggle sing all the numbers in the “Hallelujah, I’m a Bum” (irrev- relegates songlore to a deriva- IWW songbooks (issued before erently titled “Hellelujah”), the tive role.” Others suggest that his death in 1958). With the IWW paid no special attention IWW songs captured the centennial behind us, I do not to folklore theory, or the sup- union’s spirit better than its share John’s vision, for I posed values inherent in folk- manifestoes, pamphlets, and believe that most of the inclu- song. proceedings. “We should not sions retain value as cultural or In the mid-1930s, some apologize for our songs; rather historical artifacts, but not as American communists touched let’s use them as ambassadors songs in the repertoires of liv- by Popular Front ideology to working people wherever ing singers. embraced folksong. This com- they toil.” In the chronological and mitment carried through until Today, Wobbly songs seem alphabetical check lists in the the 1970s “folk boom,” but it suspended between cultural Big Red Songbook, we note all did not hold much appeal to domains. Most are obscure; a songs to date. However, in our Wobblies. However, the thirty- few live in tradition. Not one main text, we reprint only those fourth edition songbook (1973), has achieved national populari- items through the thirty-fourth overturned precedent by includ- ty associated with Broadway, edition. This decision is arbi- ing Woody Guthrie’s “Union Nashville, or Hollywood. trary; it will not satisfy all Maid.” The thirty-fifth edition Nevertheless, labor activists enthusiasts; it raises the puz- (1984), extended the process treasure the corpus for internal zling question: What is a with Les Rice’s “Banks of cheer, oppositional message, Wobbly song? Is it any piece Marble.” These two pieces rep- and humane promise. printed in an IWW songbook, or resent “People’s Songs” intru- Essentially, each Wobbly song just those that reflect IWW phi- sions in time-tested IWW reper- that carries into the twenty-first losophy? Who decides the con- toires. century will affirm the linkage tours of Wobbly belief? The subject of “intrusion” of poetry to cause, as well as Almost all Wobbly songs has, and continues to be, con- music’s use in defining individ- [Continued on naxt page ¨]

28 WIP Winter 2006-2007 wobbly songs/continued from p. 28

have been recorded by inter- present enthusiasts. the time of their composition. preters rather than by tradition- I see no contradiction Others caught on with singers; al singers. This dichotomy has between the act of preparing a they circulated widely and were raged in “folksong revival” cir- retrospective IWW album and altered in the process. cles. I shall not repeat the tired continued effort to compose Scholars fall back on two arguments here. However, I do and circulate new material. basic beliefs: a song may enter stress that very few Wobblies Bibliographic and discographic tradition; folksongs show varia- made field recordings in tradi- tools will provide useful in this tion over time and place. Before tional style. Does anyone who task of reconstruction. Readers the popular interest in folksong desires to understand IWW lore will observe that The Big Red in the 1970s, IWW members not wonder how the songs Songbook’s two checklists hold paid little attention to academic were performed when first only English-language material. issues in defining their music. introduced to copper-camp min- Hence, future fans can expand Some of these problems in ers, factory-line workers, or these lists to include IWW song- status and meaning are illus- their many peers? books in various tongues. trated by “The Dehorn,” an Wobblies faced harrowing Wobblies printed Swedish irreverent parody set to the regional, linguistic, and social songbooks both in the United tune of “The Red Flag.” It barriers among men and States and Sweden. However, opens: women awaiting organization. our present knowledge of other The dehorn’s nose is To cite an instance: when a new foreign-language editions is deepest red, little red songbook appeared in incomplete. Similarly, our The one bright spot in an East Texas piney-woods discography cries for expan- his empty head, camp or a Louisiana cypress- sion. These gaps in documenta- To get his booze he begs mill town, did the workers tion are especially ironic in that and steals, involved sound alike? It defies Wobblies were far ahead of Half naked he goes without reason to suggest that individu- rival trade unionists in organiz- his meals. als of varied descent (Anglo, ing immigrants regardless of This piece never made it into African, Mexican) in the IWW- race or speech. a little red songbook; did the affiliated Brotherhood of Timber In closing this overview, I am editors consider it sacrilegious? Workers approached material in also aware of the end of a per- Upon first hearing Joe Murphey a singular voice. By imagining sonal journey. Like other chil- sing a bit of “The Dehorn” these diverse woods singers in dren of immigrants, I attended (Occidental, CA; 1958), I was their particular styles, we arrive a Workman’s Circle school in intrigued as he related it to an at a pluralistic view of IWW lore the mid-1920s. There we IWW technique in social con- more challenging than the learned labor songs, including trol. Joe had served on dehorn “folksong-revival” flavored IWW classics. Too young to dis- squads in the Northwest lumber items in the present discography. cern the school’s politics, I asso- region. These informal commit- For many musical genres, ciated these songs with the tees, in the vernacular, loyal fans have produced LP or campaign to save Sacco and “dehorned the dehorns.” To CD compilations based on Vanzetti from the electric chair. interpret— during a strike, a ethnographic and historical In retrospect, it was a noble few tough Wobblies would research. Such an album of cause and a memorable intro- close or dismantle the saloons Wobbly songs is long overdue. duction to Wobbly music. and brothels in order to keep It might recreate the sounds of Massachusetts executed the workers focused on vital issues. a century-old Sousa brass band two Italian anarchists on August Thus, Joe recalled this song as as well as an early ragtime 23, 1927. I have sung, studied much more than a humorous ensemble. What did Richard and puzzled over IWW material ditty, for it represented a disci- Brazier experience when he in all the following decades. plined response by the IWW to took in a Spokane vaudeville Much of what is stated in this forces that destroyed workers’ show? Has any Wobbly com- preface repeats earlier formula- seriousness. mented on his exposure to a tions. Some of my views are With a fragment in mind, I barrelhouse piano or a parallel commonplace; others, contro- queried John Neuhaus about off-color ditty? Fred Thompson versial. I have already alluded “The Dehorn.” He had learned has described hearing old above to the thorny matter of it from Louis Gracey, a “shovel Chartist hymns in his native definition for Wobbly songs; stiff,” treasured it, and taught it Nova Scotia. Where did other this problem remains unre- to me. Subsequently, I included unionists become familiar with solved. I am convinced that the text in my Journal of camp-meeting hymns and some of The Big Red American Folklore memorial to gospel favorites? The challenge Songbook’s pieces proved diffi- is great; the task lies before cult, if not impossible, to sing at [Continued on naxt page ¨]

2006-2007 Winter WIP 29 wobbly songs/continued from p. 29

John Neuhaus (reprinted in novel Jim Turner (1948) holds been singing for a century. May The Big Red Songbook). Songs several choice usages for this this comprehensive gathering do not parade straight ahead colloquialism. simultaneously celebrate past in unbroken ranks. Rather, they “The Dehorn” deserved full battles and chart future goals. slither about, crawl under exploration as it challenges stu- hedges, or lie dormant for dents of language and litera- decades. “The Dehorn” came ture, history and philosophy. Born in 1917, Archie Green is a to life at a time when Wobblies For instance: how did the union shipwright and carpenter, a concerned themselves with dehorn morph into a wino (as pioneering folklorist, and an inde- alcohol as one of the many in Ed Anderson’s variant)? The fatigable teacher, both in and out of bourgeois tools designed to late Fred Thompson, who the classroom. He received his weaken a worker’s resolve. served time in San Quentin as a Ph.D. in folklore from the The song circulated, lodged class-war prisoner, told me that University of Pennsylvania— in a few memories, and his IWW mates relished the par- choosing to study at Penn because seemingly died. ody, “The Wino’s Nose.” I con- the head of the Folklore program, In a sense, “The Dehorn” jecture that Wobblies carried MacEdward Leach, supported his was reborn after it appeared the song South from interests in labor history and hillbil- in the Neuhaus memorial. Washington/Oregon lumber ly music, unconventional subjects Joyce Kornbluh doing research camps to California fields. for folklore at the time. Archie’s for Rebel Voices (1964) found Itinerants who followed the many contributions include that it had been contributed to crops (fruit tramps) after a groundbreaking work on occupa- the Industrial Worker (October grape harvest would hang tional folklore and culture, vernacu- 11, 1919) by J.B. Perhaps a year around to buy gallon cans of lar music, and in framing up the later (date unknown), it also cheap wine. Today, “wino” is ground for public sector folklife. appeared in the California widely used while “dehorn” This essay is excerpted from his Defense Bulletin as “The is esoteric. preface to The Big Red Songbook, Wino’s Nose” by Ed Anderson. However we relate “The available this winter from The Although I lack information Dehorn’s” adventures, this Charles H. Kerr publishing on both J.B. and Ed Anderson, excursion into a song’s story company. (Details are in the the date 1919 is useful in estab- tells us something of Wobbly advertising section). lishing this song’s chronology. creativity. It also points to an The term “dehorn” had been unusual portion of our volume. used by cowboys and forest Franklin Rosemont has present- rustlers to describe the act of ed a set of “lost” Wobbly songs dehorning young cattle, as well and poems— not actually lost as the cutting off of a branded but rather not included by for- log’s end. The first activity tool mer editors in the various little away a steer’s weapons; the red songbooks. He calls atten- second, assisted in theft. An tion to years of unstated (often imaginative Wobbly extended anonymous) editorial decisions the word “dehorn” to booze about standards of inclusion which rendered a worker and exclusion for selections. impotent, or robbed him IWW stalwarts, not given to of his spirit. authority, were genuinely In the Wobbly lexicon, amused that their songbooks “dehorn” in various forms gained such magisterial power became verb and noun, denoting regarding text and tune. both action and a state of being. Ultimately each Big Red It could mean the drink itself, Songbook reader will judge the the besotted drunkard, or the wisdom of our selections and effect after drinking. When opinions. Songs lost or found, Prohibition ruled, many persons sacred or irreverent, touted or used denatured or adulterated neglected, serious or zany, alcohol. Thus, a canned-heat singable or not, are here. bum became a hopeless dehorn. Industrial Workers of the James Steven’ Northwest woods World and their friends have

30 WIP Winter 2006-2007 Available Now! the only documentary on pioneering African American women tap dancers from Philly!

Only $24.95! Order on line (www.folkloreproject.org) or by check to: PFP, 735 S. 50th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19143 10% off with this AD!

The BOARD OF CEDAR PARK NEIGHBORS (Carol Walker, President; Maureen Tate, 1st. Vice President; Monica Allison, 2nd Vice President; Karen Allen, Esq. Treasurer; Dorothy Berlind, Secretary) AND ALL OF OUR MEMBERSHIP, NEIGHBORS AND FRIENDS

CONGRATULATE PFP on 20 years of support for the city’s diverse folk arts.

www.cedarparkneighbors.org (267.531.4147)

Philadelphia Folklore Project NON-PROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE 735 S. 50th Street PAID Philadelphia, PA 19143 PHILADELPHIA, PA [ 1987 - 2007 ] PERMIT NO. 1449

magazine of the

Address service requested